My Greatest
by JackOfBloodyHearts
Summary: Part 3 of my Largo trilogy. Amber Sweet, from "REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA", begins to uncover repressed memories of her mother that lead to her confrontation with her father.
1. Chapter 1: Rotti and Amber

_**My Greatest**_

* * *

**Chapter One: ROTTI AND AMBER**

Amber held her older brother's hand as the two were walking down a dark corridor in her father's mansion. Of course, her name wasn't Amber, and as she looked up, she couldn't tell which of her older brothers it was. She was five, maybe six. They were walking towards a terrible woman's voice screeching obscenities.

"Carmela! Where the fuck are you, you silly bitch?!" screeched the woman. Carmela (_Amber. My name is Amber now, Daddy_) gripped her brother's hand tighter as they entered a room lit only by a blazing fire that caused shadows to flicker and grope at her as she approached the woman.

"Miss Largo?"

Amber, still groggy, began to recover from her dose of GeneCo-manufactured zydrate. She was sitting in her reserved seat at GeneCo, and a surGen was standing in front of her, waving her hand in front of Amber's face like an idiot (_Like a silly bitch_).

With a small headache branching through her brain, Amber grabbed blindly and snagged the surGen's collar. She didn't have enough strength in her arms to pull the woman towards her just yet, however.

"Miss Who?"

"Miss-"

"Miss _Sweet_!" Amber relaxed her grip and let the surGen go on with what she had woken Amber for.

"Your surgery is finished. Your nose was successfully replaced. It was just a minor gash, but we swapped it out completely and gave you a brand new one."

"How's it look?"

"Beautiful as always, Miss Sweet."

Amber took a moment to gather herself before attempting to stand. She prodded her new nose and rubbed her eyes. "Charge it to Daddy's tab."

"Of course, Miss Sweet."

Amber began stumbling out of the GeneCo clinic and realized she hadn't eaten yet. Her breakfast and lunch had been spent repairing the damage done to her nose by her asshole of a brother. With her two valets marching behind her, Amber made her way to her father's limousine, which sat idling in front of the clinic.

The door opened, and Amber sat across from her father, slamming the door before her valets could step in. _They can take the next car_, Amber thought to herself. Rotti sat with his cold, angry face. His two henchgirls (_So goddamned pale!_) sat on either side of him with no expression on either face.

"Daddy-dearest, how do you like it?" squeaked Amber. Whenever she spoke to her father, it was always in a high-pitched baby-doll voice.

"How much was it?" was her father's only response. The limo driver pulled away from the curb as Amber searched her father's face for any sign of approval or disappointment.

"I 'unno, Daddy."

"Amber, we need to talk."

"'Bout what, Daddy?"

"GeneCo."

"You mean, the CEO posit-"

"You're going to run it into the ground if you continue with your constant surgeries," said Rotti. Amber couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

"Oh, but Daddy, I gotta keep changing! I'm just a few more operations away from being _perfect_!"

Rotti's face remained unmoving as he stared at his daughter, until the smallest smile cracked at the corner of his lips. "Amber, honey, you're as perfect as you can be."

Amber blushed as Rotti pinched her cheek softly. The two henchgirls looked at each other and gave the smallest sign of disgust at the father's ooey-gooey love over his daughter. His greatest.


	2. Chapter 2: At home

**Chapter Two: AT HOME**

Amber kissed her father on the cheek (his two henchgirls flinched, ready to fire, at her sudden movement towards the man they were born to protect) before stepping out his limousine. The long black vehicle disappeared down the street as silently as it had arrived.

As Amber walked up the steps, she found Pavi standing outside the door. A cigarette dangled from his fingers as a cloud of smoke crept from the nostrils of some poor woman's face. Amber couldn't help but notice the excellent condition the unnamed woman had kept her skin in before Pavi had taken her face.

"Oh my God, Dad's gonna flip when he finds out you're smoking again!"

"He won't if-a you keep-a your trap shut, _Carmela_."

"Pavi, if you call me that one more time-" Amber raised a finger and jabbed it near Pavi's chin before she was cut off.

"You'll-a run and tattle on-a me like a baby," said Pavi. He was eerily confident, like he'd just triumphed over some obstacle.

"Shut up. People who smoke are so gross!"

"Not as-a bad as-a people who-a reek of-a death and-a grunge. Like-a your boyfrie-"

"Shut up, _Paviche_!"

"You don't-a tell-a Poppa about-a my smoking, I won't-a tell him about-a that gross grave robber. Or-a the Zydrate. Or-a the fact that you are a big slut," Pavi grinned and blew smoke in Amber's face. She began trembling in rage (_No stress! God, no stress! I don't want wrinkles like Luigi!_).

As Amber took in a deep breath to calm herself (_God, second hand smoke is gross!_), she began wondering where GraveRobber was. Her nose felt like it was swelling with pain already. Despite the fact that GeneCo made their own zydrate without having to bleed it from the brains of corpses, the quality was lower in terms of how long the pain-free high lasted. She rubbed her sweaty palms across her black dress and continued into the house.

Looking up the stairs, she began trembling again. She needed to sit. As she reached for the banister (_God, why doesn't he have a phone to call him at?!_), she kneeled onto the steps. She would have to wait for her valets to arrive to help her up. Help her find her GraveRobber.

As Amber waited, shaking with both withdrawl and impatience, she began to zone out (_Carmela!_). _God_, Amber thought, _what a shit name that was_. Her wandering thoughts stopped on that topic as she began recalling why she changed (_Change, there's always room for change! You're not perfect yet!_) her name in the first place. _Where did it begin? Oh yes, the birth certificate._ "Carmela", despite sounding sweet and syrupy, was not an original name. Not for the Largos. Amber began to black out as more memories were flushed into her head like toxic waste. Stale, old toxic waste. Perhaps the GeneCo quality waste found rotting the graveyard (_GraveRobber, oh GraveRobber!_) ground.

Carmela (_Mom!_) was her mother's name.


	3. Chapter 3: On the stairs, in the street

**Chapter Three: ON THE STAIRS, IN THE STREET**

"Mommy, here she is, I found Carmela!"

"Luigi, _I am not your mother_! Carmela, _get your ass over here_!"

Luigi tossed his little sister's hand away and stormed out of the room, leaving the small girl to face the drunken monster of a woman that was Carmela Largo. The elder Carmela Largo. Little Carmela (_You're daddy's little girl, you know that Mellie_?) took baby-steps towards her mother, who stood next to the blazing fire place with a half-empty glass of red wine.

"Sit," the horrid woman said. She was drunk, brooding, and out of her senses as she pointed to a large chair across from her. Little (_Mellie_) took notice that the hand holding the glass was shaking, as was the woman's finger.

As Little Carmela shuffled into her seat, her mother sighed deeply. Looking at her glass questioningly, she downed its contents before whipping it into the blazing fire. The glass made a crackling noise as it heated and exploded.

"What is it Mommy?"

"We have a problem, you little _attention-whore_," the words were spat from her mother's mouth. Little Carmela, at the age of six, wasn't entirely sure what the word "whore" meant, but had heard it many times from her mother. She had asked her once, but got slapped, and figured she should never use the word again. Little did she know that by the age of 13 she would be labeled one herself by her brothers.

"All _fucking_ day, all I hear from your father is, 'Mellie _this_,' and, 'Mellie _that_,' and now he just avoids _me_ altogether!" Carmela screamed.

"Carmela!"

Mother and daughter both turned from each other to see who Rotti was yelling at. He entered the room as a silhouette wall of shadows, and as he came closer they both saw the rage, exaggerated by the light of the fire. Carmela began trembling more visibly as he entered, and subconsciously fumbled her hand around looking for the bottle of wine. Little Mellie was in shock at her father. She bolted from the room.

As she tripped along the carpet, she stopped to catch her breath, and listened. She couldn't make out anything her parents were saying, but she could see. Their shadows were ripping each other apart on the hallway floor. Rotti screamed something about "my daughter" and used some more words that Little Carmela didn't understand before he threw the wine bottle down and shattered it to pieces. He stormed out then and looked at his daughter. She wasn't sure then whether it was a look of disgust or of sorrow. Her mother began sobbing and shrieking obscenities to herself in the other room and Little Carmela began walking back into the room, right up to the aging woman, and stopped. She wasn't sure which parent to trust anymore.

"Mommy?" Carmela looked at her daughter and with an instant rage that could have towered over Luigi's. With a clawed hand, Carmela slapped her daughter, sending her toppling to the floor in tears.

"Amber!" GraveRobber's hand slapped Amber lightly and she began stirring. Her head was spinning (Ooh, zydrate!) and she looked around her. Her two valets were down the street and GraveRobber was kneeling in front of her. Had her mind not been going crazy from the zydrate, she might question her lack of memories of coming from the stairs at her home down to the seedy part of town, but instead she simply smiled, stood up, and stormed away. She needed to change herself a little more.


	4. Chapter 4: Practice

**Chapter Four: PRACTICE**

Little Carmela was looking outside of the kitchen window. She had just stopped crying after her mother told her that she had an ugly nose. At the time, Pavi had laughed, making Little Carmela feel all the worse. (_Daddy_) hadn't gotten home yet, and instead, Amber sat and cried to herself while watching the rain come pouring down outside.

"What's the matter, Mellie?" Rotti had caught her off guard; she hadn't heard him come in. He pulled her into a hug, and she began bawling all the harder while stuttering out her explanation. When she finished explaining what her mother had said, Rotti pulled her away from his chest and held her sternly by the shoulders, shocked.

"She said that?"

"Yeah, and Pavi laughed!" Carmela wiped some of her tears away and sniffled.

"I'll… I'll go talk to her. I'm sorry, Mellie. Your mother can just be unbearable when she starts drinking." With that, Rotti turned and made his way up the stairs.

Carmela went back to looking outside at the pouring rain. Her mother's body hit the pavement outside five minutes later. It landed in a deep puddle with a wet thud.

"Amber, for Goddess Mother Gene's sake! Start again!"

Amber breathed in deeply, surprised. She was getting very screwed up with the recent flood of memories that kept attacking her in bouts, and the last of them really got to her. She quickly remembered where she was and sank back into her normal personality.

"Why?" Amber whined, totally pushing the memories aside. The Bandleader looked at her with a hateful, impatient glare.

"Because you're _still_ not getting the point of it! There's no soul in it when you sing! There's no beauty! If you don't practice, you're going to murder this piece on stage!"

"_Excuse_ me?! _I'm_ going to murder it? I'll have you know I'm a brilliant singer!" Amber stood defiantly, pushing her long hair (_Blonde, why did I get blonde hair? I'm just asking for Pavi to start off with his stupid dumb-blonde jokes that don't make sense!_) over her shoulder.

"Well you're certainly no Blind Mag," said the Bandleader. He regretted it instantly. Amber snagged his lapels in her claws and yanked him closer.

"'Scuse me?!" Amber spat. Rotti entered the room just then.

"Mr. Bandleader, what is going on?"

"He said Mag's better than me!" Amber spoke in her pouty voice, letting go of the Bandleader.

"All I meant was that when _Mag_ sang it-"

"Enough! I don't pay you for private singing lessons so that you can compare my daughter with Blind Mag!" Rotti growled. He held Amber while she sneered at the Bandleader.

"Fine! Amber, let's go! From the top! Blame Not My Cheeks! Let's hear it!" the Bandleader huffed.

"Actually, I need to discuss matters with my daughter. Come back next week."

The man with blue lips stormed out of the room in a hurry while Amber turned to look at her father.

"What's the matter, Daddy?"


	5. Chapter 5: Rotti's office

**Chapter Five: ROTTI'S OFFICE**

Amber sat in the comfy chair as she waited for her father to return to his office. His two henchgirls remained in the room with her, poised with their rifles ready.

"You guys are going to be following me around some day, you know that?" Amber said. There was a tone of playfulness in her voice, but a look of utter superiority in her smile. She stood from her chair and dragged her fingers across the top of her father's desk as if examining it for the first time. Looking up at the henchgirls, her smirk disappeared, as if she were annoyed that they didn't respond when she knew that more often than not, they chose not to speak.

"Actually, I'm not sure you will."

The two pale women turned and looked at each other through their sunglasses before turning their attention back to the door straight ahead, waiting for their master to return.

"No, I think I might just dispose of both of you, let my valets have a little more power," Amber continued. She absent-mindedly began fiddling with a GeneCo-property fountain pen on Rotti's desk.

"They seem to be so much more fitting and cute than you two living-corpses," Amber went too far. The henchgirls snapped their focus back to Amber and aimed their rifles at her head, not because of the comment, but because of the action that followed: Amber had took it upon herself to sit down in her father's chair.

"Remove yourself from Mr. Largo's seat or we will blow your head off, Miss Amber."

"What the fuck?!"

"We will not repeat ourselves," the two women clicked the stocks of their guns in unison and froze in position, ready to follow through with their warning.

"Enough!" Rotti thundered. He waved down the two guns aimed at Amber, who stood from his seat as fast as she could, arms up in surrender.

"What the hell, Dad? They were ready to kill me!" Amber screamed. She stormed around to the other side of the desk and stood to meet Rotti.

"They're very willing to blow away anything if it's against my interest."

"Against your interest? Daddy, I'm your _daughter_!"

"They don't care. Despite that, they're very useful. They helped to bring _this_ to my attention," Rotti tossed a folder onto his desk and sat while Amber sat in her seat. She opened the folder and was confused. There were photos of her. Dozens of photos of her. In some, she was passed out against a wall, or in her valets' arms, while in others, she was with -

"A graverobber, Amber?!" Rotti shouted. Amber looked up at the two henchgirls with a look that could kill. The smallest smirk appeared across their faces before they returned to their solemn stance.

"Daddy, I can explain!"

"Amber, you just don't get it!"

"There's nothing to get, Dad! I -"

"Enough! Just listen for once in your life! I've done everything in my power to prevent you from becoming… _screwy_, like your brothers. I've poured half my life into you! I've turned the other way when you've changed yourself repeatedly. I took your name change with a grain of salt. I've done everything I can, just so you could be unharmed, undamaged by anything! I've given you opportunity after opportunity to succeed, to advance in life! And _still_, you manage to…" Rotti stopped.

"Go ahead, Dad! Say it! Piss you off? Am I really such a brat that you get angry every time you have to say 'Amber' instead of 'Carmela'?"

"I'm not pissed off, Amber. I'm… disappointed," Rotti said, quietly but sharply. He might as well have slapped Amber outright. Amber stood and turned before storming towards the door.

"Amber! We are _not_ done here!"

Amber turned, and, with every word dripping with spite, said, "I think I'll go before you push me out of a window, Daddy."

Rotti looked at her, shocked. There was only one instant she could possibly be referring to, and he didn't expect her to even remember it clearly.

"Amber, please! Please just come back here and talk to me about this!"

"There's nothing left to talk about, Dad!" With that, Amber left, not even bothering to close the door behind her.

Rotti sighed. She had been his priority project ever since she'd been born, and had still somehow turned into a monster. Like her mother. And worse still, like her father. Despite owning the leading company in genetics, he had failed to change her in the one way she needed. She had tapped into the addictive-side of her genes, as had her mother, and had become ruthless like Rotti himself. And yet, deep-down, Rotti could not help but feel like it wasn't her fault. She was his baby, and she couldn't be the guilty one.

Pulling out the little white paper, Rotti stared at the three names. Two of them had been scratched out, one with blood, and only Amber's remained. Taking his pen, he sighed again before scribbling a line over his daughter's name. His pen didn't quite stop, though, and he found himself instead creating a question mark. He couldn't say she was the best thing to happen to his life, but he could still call her his greatest.


End file.
